For the past two
years,
the Ohio
Democratic Party
(ODP) focused on building an election-winning infrastructure to help
elect
Democrats at all levels in 2008. Our approach was simple: build it
early, build
it big, and build it from the ground up.

And when ODP
combined
with Senator
Obama’s Campaign for Change (CFC), our joint efforts became
super-charged. Here’s
a brief recap of Tuesday’s historic top-to-bottom Democratic victories
in Ohio
and how we pulled
off these stunning wins.

Barack
Obama
Wins Ohio
–
and the Presidency

President-elect
Barack Obama won Ohio,
51%-47% (with 98 percent reporting). He not only broke a 12 year losing
cycle
for Democratic Presidential nominees, but he is the first Democratic
nominee to
break 50% since Lyndon Johnson in 1964.

When
Ohio
was
called for Obama at 9:25 pm, it eliminated any chance of McCain winning
the
White House. In short, we knocked McCain out in Ohio.

At
Least Two
New Democrats Elected to Congress

At
least two new Democrats in Ohio
were elected to Congress. Democrat Steve Driehaus won in Ohio’s
1st Congressional District, beating GOP incumbent Steve
Chabot,
while Democrat John Boccieri beat the GOP’s Kirk Schuring in Ohio’s
16th
district. A third
potential pick up, Mary Jo Kilroy’s race, is still too close to call.

These
two new Democratic seats are in historically leaning-Republican
districts, a
testament to strong candidate recruitment, a winning message, and a
robust GOTV
infrastructure created by Ohio Democrats.

Not
a single Democratic incumbent lost their seat. In fact, all incumbent
Democrats
won by significant margins.

Democrats
Recapture Ohio
House of Representatives

Democrats
picked up a net of six seats (at least) in the Ohio House of
Representatives,
giving Democrats control of the House for the first time since 1994.

Since
2004, Democrats have gained a total of 17 net seats in the Ohio House
(4 seats gained
in 2004; 7 in 2006; and at least 6 in 2008).

Additionally,
Democrats won back the Ohio House under the district lines that
Republicans had
drawn – the first time EVER that any Party in Ohio has regained the
House majority
under
the lines drawn by the opposing Party.

By
winning back the Ohio House, Governor Strickland now has a productive
legislative partner to help continue to turn around Ohio and
improve the lives of working families.

We
won Ohio
at all levels because
the Ohio Democratic Party, Senator Obama’s Campaign for Change, and our
coordinated campaign partners worked together in an unprecedented
manner. Here
is what we accomplished as of November 3rd:

CFC/ODP
registered 105,862 new Ohio
voters during this cycle.

Democrats
have a registration advantage of 986,495 in Ohio – the highest in a
generation.

We
placed organizers in all parts of Ohio.
The result: Obama outperformed John Kerry’s vote share in 76 of Ohio’s
88
counties.

Combined,
CFC and ODP recruited and engaged more than 60,000 volunteers all
across Ohio,
with each
volunteer assigned to one of 1,200 neighborhoods.

We
attempted 11,168,942 voter contacts, and completed 3,552,486
conversations with
Ohioans at the door or on the phone.

More
than 8.7 million flyers or packets of information were delivered to
Ohioans.

ODP/CFC
hired more than 700 people in 24 regions across the state.

During
our six day GOTV effort, we filled more than 127,374 volunteer shifts
(130% of
our goal) and used nearly 700 separate staging locations to coordinate
our
door-to-door voter contact efforts.

During
that time, Ohio Democrats attempted 3,152,000 voter contacts, speaking
with
448,471 voters across Ohio,
and dropping more than 4.9 million door-hangers.